The economic efficiency of formwork systems does not depend only on the cost of the product; the achievable performance on the construction site has also a big influence on the selection process. This performance is connected to various factors, such as the number or weight of the individual items, or the required height of the formwork surface. In the course of this research project, four different slab formwork systems performing similar jobs were investigated, enabling a comparison based on an ergonomic assessment. The evaluation of the different systems proved that results and expectations correspond, in this case tasks were reviewed separately for individual systems. Comparing the systems directly, by using the calculated points of the ergonomics evaluation for an average work process, the results display that the least onerous system achieved the highest individual score values. These results led to the assumption that ergonomic scores should not be the sole base for a decision; therefore the performance progress was included and relative ergonomic values for a typical formwork surface were calculated. The result of this evaluation is in line with expectations for the strain of individual systems. The different results between single-task and performance-related evaluations illustrated that, for the assessment of health and safety issues combined with economic factors, not only was the single-task evaluation important, but also an overall view should be taken for a typical scope of work.